1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to information retrieval techniques and more particularly to determining affinity between items using objective and subjective data.
2. Related Art
The Internet has dramatically changed the manner in which we access, gather, and collect information. Vast amounts of information are now available on-line. Various tools are available that aid users in searching this information, such as a variety of different search engines. However, it can be difficult and time consuming for on-line users to sift through the mountains of data that are available. There are many instances where users are interested in gathering information that is similar in some respect to a particular topic, but that may not lend itself to being found by a search engine. For example, users can search the Internet to find information on just about any song ever written by any artist by searching on the artist name or song title. A user may, however, be interested in finding new artists that might be similar in some respect to an artist that the user knows and enjoys. In other words, the user may be interested in finding those artists that have a high degree of affinity to the known artist. The term affinity is used herein to refer to a measure of similarity between two items. Unfortunately, known search engines are not particularly useful for such a search.
Tools are available today that allow a user to learn more about a topic of interest, where related topics are searched based on objective properties related to the topic. For example, many sites allow users to search for songs in a particular genre, or for newspaper articles having a particular search term in the headline or body of the article text. However, this type of search often produces far too many results to be useful, or results which are of minimal relevance to the sought after topic. Many of these search facilities also fail to incorporate any subjective data into the search process, such as taking into account the opinion of other users who have sought similar information in the past.
Therefore, what is needed is an improved system and method for determining affinity between items of data using both objective and subjective data.
A method of determining a relationship between a search item provided by a user and a plurality of objective items. Each objective item in the plurality includes a plurality of objective item properties and the search item includes one or more search item properties. The method comprises grouping a subset of objective items based on an objective relationship between one or more of the plurality of objective item properties and the one or more search item properties. The method comprises modifying the subset based on a subjective relationship, wherein the subjective relationship indicates an association between objective items in the subset and the search item. Thereby, an affinity value is calculated between each objective item in the subset and the search item. The method comprises ranking the objective items in the modified subset based on the affinity value calculated.
A method of determining a relationship between a search item provided by a user and a plurality of objective items. The search item includes one or more search item properties and each objective item in the plurality includes one or more objective item properties. The method comprising computing an affinity value between each of the one or more search item properties and each of the one or more objective item properties. In addition, grouping a number of objective items into an appropriate one or more clusters, wherein the number of objective items grouped have the affinity value within a predetermined distance with respect to the search item. In addition, partitioning a plurality of subjective data into one or more bins, wherein each of the one or more bins corresponds to an appropriate one or more clusters. Also, assigning a rule within each of the one or more bins, where each rule represents a user defined relationship between the objective items and the search item. Also, computing a subjective property value for each rule, wherein the subjective property indicates a strength of the user-defined relationship. In addition, adjusting the affinity value based on the subjective property value computed, thereby generating an adjusted affinity value. Updating the one or more clusters, wherein the plurality of objective items are rearranged between the one or more clusters as a result of the adjusted affinity value.
A system for retrieving information in response to a search item. The system comprises an objective database including a plurality of objective items. A subjective database having one or more rules, wherein each of the one or more rules represents a subjective relationship between one or more of the plurality of objective items and the search item. A collaborative filtering module for assigning a subjective property value to each of the one or more rules, wherein the subjective property value indicates a strength of the subjective relationship. An affinity calculation module for determining an affinity value between the search item and each of the plurality of objective items in the objective database. One or more objective items having an affinity value within a predetermined distance are initially grouped together in one or more clusters, whereby the affinity calculation module rearranges the one or more objective items in the one or more clusters upon receiving the subjective property value from the collaborative filtering module.